


No One Left to Falter

by ThisIsLightful



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: No Boy Who Lived AU, No Chosen One AU, No Prophecy AU, Sad, War, because so many things weren't addressed, it's also kind of a fix-it, this is really depressing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-11-28 12:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11418207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisIsLightful/pseuds/ThisIsLightful
Summary: When war comes knocking on the door, there is no one there to answer. The other side is silent, waiting, biding, losing all hope as it slips through their fingers like the sands of time. There is no Prophecy. No Chosen One there to save them all. There is only the copper of blood, only the shine of the Avada Kedavra glittering like emeralds a second before it takes away from you all you’ve ever loved, and perhaps you away from it. There is only pain and destruction, and a little orphan boy who wants to fix the world with his hands that are borne of the ash of his unsavory childhood and the guilt dripping from his eyes.There is no such thing as someone born to fit a role, only people who are thrust into situations and struggling to take hold of it with bleeding fingers and hope that sings through them, barely louder than the wailing of despair.





	1. Prologue: In Ash

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_casket_girls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_casket_girls/gifts).



The village is being ransacked. The Order is in disarray., A jeering cackle echoes throughout the battlefield, it reverberates in the bones of all who fight- for or against- and it fills them with dread and determination.

“Lily.” His dark skin is covered in soot, his brown eyes fading in and out of this reality, his smile falling. It was his moppy mess of hair that remained unchanged, not even singed like his robes.

“Oh, James.” She chokes out a sob, her pale hand caressing his face. Her untameable red hair cut short, curling inwards as if even it wishes to escape this war. Her eyes glimmer with unshed tears, and she tries to be quiet. Quiet as the shuddering exhale of the last breath. “I- I can heal this. I  _ know  _ I can!” Her voice is pitching hysterical, and if she doesn’t simmer down, they’ll be found. She was always passion, a flame burning through all obstacles, but any much more than the flicker of a candle’s flame could doom them all, now.

“Sh-sh. Dear-” he sputters as red spills from his mouth, as a rattling cough tries to find home in his chest and he  _ pushes it out because not now, not before he  _ **_knows._ ** “Love, get to- to- get Harry, dear.” His head hits the splintered wall, the debris littered around them the smallest form of carnage that they have seen in a long while. “Pro-te-tect him, you hear?”

Lily Potter nee Evans has never been foolish, has always been able to prioritize; to disconnect from herself for a little while so that she could do what  _ had  _ to be done and mourn what she wished  _ upon that childish star as it plummets to its downfall  _ she would have done. “Of course, deer.” Her voice sounds wet and heavy with grief, but she wants James’ last image of her to be her  _ smiling.  _ The kind she gave him when he was reading and he stuck his tongue out between his teeth, or when he was up on his broom and seemed so happy, or when he made her breakfast in bed, or laughed with little Harry.

He lets out a surprised chuckle that sounds more like a pained wheeze. “Did you make- make a  _ pun _ \- you-o- Li-ily Ev-Potter? Never- never thought I’d live- live to see the day.” His next laugh is quieter, but more desperate. “I-I almost didn’t.”

“James Potter.” She leans forward, brushes her lips against his forehead, and then once again against his own. “You are the bravest man I have ever met, and I am glad that you gave your heart to me. I love you, so, so much.” She bit her lips, and tried not to let slip the  _ “please don’t go. Please don’t leave me and our son. We love you. We love you and if you died and slipped away from my grasp it would  _ **_hurt_ ** _.  _ **_Always._ ** _ ” _

“Always- always did say that your smile could blind men, didn’t I, dearest?” His eyesight was fading, part of a slow acting curse that would kill him, inevitably. No cure. No countercurse. Just a slow death.

“That you did.” She was taking deep breaths, her wand in her hand, James’ wand in her ankle holster. “I love you,” she repeated, because now that their time was numbered she needed to say it enough to fill up his last moments.

“Go, dear.” And she did. “I lo-love you too, dear.” His words greeted the now empty, ruined cottage. She did not see the tear-tracks clearing away the grime on his face. She did not see him coughing up his own blood. She did not see him gasp, and call, and beg. He did not want her to remember him like that. As he came undone, as he become so engulfed by the pain that it numbed him, he remembered Lily’s last smile, and his precious son’s laughter, and the green that glittered like emeralds alighting both their eyes with  _ life. “I love you all, so much,”  _ he thought, and no more would he ever think.

Lily ran, vicious hexes and curses and jinxes on her lips as she all but danced through the writhing mass of chaos as two sides clashed into an uncomfortable middle. Her home was warded, Harry in his room surrounded by packed boxes, but panic still flung itself in her blood, propelling her footfalls as she strived to go faster and faster and  _ faster still _ .  _ Harry. Harry. Must get Harry.  _ It was a mantra in her head; she could not focus on James’ death. Could not focus on the screams of those as they tasted the torture curse. No. Only her son.  _ Her  _ **_precious baby boy._ ** Was keeping her from falling to shambles.

“Reducto!” Like a bomb dropped into the crowd, everything inverted and then exploded outwards. She knew that she had probably, at the very least, crippled a few of those men. She didn’t care. They wore masks and weren’t Harry. They hurt her friends and stood between her and Harry. The words  _ Fiendfyre  _ were beginning to curl on her tongue, she could feel the heat and the anger and the grief pound in her body, begging for an outlet, but she held back- for now, at least. She pierced through her wards, glad that no one had disassembled them yet, and scrambled up the stairs towards the aching cries of her child.

“Mommy’s coming, Harry!” She held back her sobs, although they bubbled up even as she scrambled furiously to Harry’s room. “Mommy’s here-”

She wasn’t alone.

Harry wasn’t alone.

She knew who this was.

Fear bred fear, and it permeated throughout her very being. Her son was now silent, chubby brows furrowed as he stared curiously at the odd man above him.

“Voldemort.” She tried to stay calm. Rational. Her mind was jumping from possible solution to possible solution, calculating probability and constantly finding the chances abysmally low. “How did you-?”  
“The warding was pathetic.” His voice was unusually soft, his head tilted in contemplation. He pursed his lips, staring at Harry, her little Harry, the last blood of James, in a way that unnerved her. “You know...” His black hair was sleek and it did not seem to move with him, his slim body turned away from her, she wouldn’t have been rooted to the spot if not for the magic pouring out of him in waves and the piercing slitted red eyes that peered at her like a snake at its prey. His immaculate appearance made her blood boil; the cause of the war looked the least affected by it. “Magical blood is still magical,” he sneered at her, and she shifted slightly, a plan unfolding in her mind. “No matter how _tainted._ No magical child should be abandoned.” He ran a bony finger over the toddler’s messy hair, and flashed her a shark-like grin. “Maybe I’ll just take the little tyke, put him in a home where he’ll grow up _right_.”

Quick as a bullet, like a viper striking out, she threw four hexes at him in rapid succession. He easily deflected, but it have her the split second she needed to cast a “Diffindo” on her arm. Her blood dripped onto the complex runes that were invisible before. Harry’s room was fortified and had a dozen different escape routes, each for a different situation. She and James loved- had loved- their son, and ensured that  _ nothing  _ would take him, not even after they drew their last breath. This one was activated by blood, and would transport Harry and a few boxes of essentials to her sister’s house. It only needed one more thing- a sacrifice.

“You filthy mudblood!” His eyes were wild; he desperately tried to figure out what the runes meant. It didn’t take him long. His eyes widened. “You crazy-”

Lily grinned, and finally, her calm “Fiendfyre” broke free, sliding off her tongue with sinful ease, engulfing her and the madman in flames.

He would be back, but he would lick his wounds for a long while yet.

Little Harry’s cries woke the residents of Privet Drive number four.

Covered in ash, his past bathed in blood.

Little Harry had a lot of growing up to do.


	2. A Letter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'd like to apologize for the hiatus- I've been in a very bad headspace lately. I might be getting help soon with that, though!  
> The chapters are only going to be between 1,000 and 3,000 words each, so they will be kinda short.  
> Please, enjoy!

Harry Potter was an odd boy.

Quiet he was, silently he moved. Even though he had not inherited his mother’s pale skin, he seemed to ghost through each room, as though he was translucent. He hunched his shoulders, his malnourished body bending even smaller, as though he was trying to squeeze himself tight enough to vanish from existence entirely. As though his own arms were the closest approximation to a hug he could get.

His appearance, too, was odd. Everyone on Privet Drive had straight, calm hair; well, perhaps not naturally, but nothing a few hours, a mirror, and some gel couldn’t fix. Harry’s hair? His aunt was particularly fond of calling it the _rats’ nest_ , but comparing Harry to anything unsavory was a hobby of hers, so Harry ignored it. He had old, circular glasses that were rusted in some places and looked ready to fall apart: he’d gotten it at a second-hand store after a teacher had lamented about how _abnormal_ it was for him not to visit the eye-doctor for his vision problems. But more than hair and old glasses, more than baggy hand-me-down shirts- which could all be excused- Harry had scars.  
On his hands, on the sides of his fingers, a smaller one on the side of his head- no hair would grow there, but it was easily covered- were burn scars. They were white marks, agitated by the cold and storms, but otherwise they had not damaged him. He was told he must have gotten them when his- _drunken, useless,_ ** _freaky_** \- parents had- _recklessly_ \- gotten into a car crash.

When he thought of his parents, Harry felt a lot like That Kid. The one who had stood on top of a rooftop and stared at the ground as if he wanted it to swallow him up and if it didn’t he’d dive into it like it was a pool. He stared down like he had seen the world and the world had scorned him, like beneath the earth was the only place he could find stars: galaxies of bones, nebulas of lost memories, constellations of maggots and worms pulsating throughout cold bodies. And that kid had stared listlessly, hopelessly, and Harry had wanted to call out. To offer a hand, a smile. Dudley, however, had snickered and said  _ “Do a flip on the way down!”  _ before Uncle Vernon dragged them away. Harry had heard sirens, but he never knew what had become of the boy.

Harry often wondered if, as his parents’ car collided with another, the car had  _ done a flip _ , if for their moment of reckless abandon and apparent  _ worthlessness  _ they had entertained someone  _ normal.  _ Harry wondered if their final breaths were amusing. 

He’d seen animals die, after the Polkiss kid threw rocks at them. He never found it funny. It  _ was  _ funny how it always ended up his fault, though; maybe his parents were like him: just one big, freakish, inconvenient joke.

“ **_FREAK!_ ** ” the dulcet tones of his beloved Aunt Petunia serenaded him with his favorite pet name. 

He held back a rather scathing reply on how horse-like she looked when she sneered like that- he liked to believe that his insults were more than just skin-deep. “Yes, Aunt Petunia?” was a good reply. Instead, what came out of his mouth was “Yes, dearest Aunt of mine? How can I help you today?  _ Your  _ chrysanthemums are coming in great. I know that you  _ slaved over them.  _ I mean, it’s not like I’m doing this, because that’s not what you told Miss. Figg or any of the neighbors.” Harry damned himself and his parents for giving him this dratted tongue- it didn’t seem to work, politely, as it should. Could he return it? Probably not, if the Durselys were any measure of his worth.

“Boy,” she got out between gritted teeth. If the only thing Harry accomplished in life was ruining his Aunt’s teeth by aggravating her, he would die happy. It was very sad that his only goal was to ruin a single person’s dental record, but, well, Harry would get what he could get. “Nothing…  _ abnormal  _ has happened with you recently, has it?” She wrung her hands, eyes darting side-to-side as though she could catch glitches in the Matrix forming around them.

“Unless you count this,” he gestured to her entire being, “then no.”

She scowled, “See if I give you any breakfast tomorrow, boy.” and stormed away.

“Not like you’re the one who cooks it.” Harry muttered, and continued pulling weeds.

The next morning, something odd DID happen: Uncle Vernon barked at Harry to get the mail- which wasn’t the odd thing, that was quite normal- and Harry discovered something. A letter. A letter addressed to him. He quickly tucked it beneath the elastic of his trousers, and yanked down his shirt.

“What’s taking so long, boy!” his Uncle shouted from across the house. Harry could just imagine his uncle’s face purpling, like an eggplant with a double chin.

“Coming, Uncle Vernon!” Harry ran to the kitchen, plopped the mail down in front of his uncle, snagged a piece of toast, and went out to the garden. Dudley wasn’t allowed to hurt him when he was gardening, it might hurt the plants, and his aunt and uncle much rather stay inside, giving Harry the privacy he needed. He read somewhere that the best disguise was the one that everybody could see, and a life with the Dursleys made him readily agree.

“ _ Hogwarts _ …  _ School of Witchcraft and Wizardry _ ?!? Is this real?” He looked around, and made sure that the letter was hidden by a bucket. It couldn’t be real, could it? Everyone knew that magic wasn’t real. Then again, his aunt had forbade the word  _ magic  _ from being used in her household, she called him a freak, and Harry had done some… inexplicable things. Maybe this letter was the key to making them explicable?

He scowled. A school would cost money that the Dursleys wouldn’t pay. And would this  _ Hogwarts  _ even accept a  _ runt-  _ as his Aunt Marge was fond of calling him- like him? How would he respond? They would accept his  _ owl _ ?? How was he supposed to get a ruddy owl???

Harry resolved himself to going to the nearby library and skimming through any books that looked like they might have some sort of answer. Maybe he’d snag a few books on Chakras and the like to make it look like he had some sort of sudden, yet passing interest in his spiritual health, or something. Or should he grab a bunch of books on the Salem Witch Trials to try and pass it off as a historical interest? Decisions, decisions. 

Harry heaved a sigh; he wasn’t very fond of reading nonfiction.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I would like to thank my friend, floverload, for helping me edit this and ALSO just for support she is awesome and 10 times the writer I am so check her out!!  
> I was really surprised not to find any "No Chosen One" AUs- plenty of Wrong BWL AUs, though.  
> This was going to be a one shot, but I struggle with creating one time stories. There were problems that weren't addressed in the books as much (plenty of morally grey characters presented as black or white morals instead; Harry's an abuse victim and that isn't really addressed; etc. I'm going to address all of that! There WILL be character death though. Probably a lot of character death.


End file.
